How to "view the big picture"...

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I realize this is what makes us so different from NTs - we see the world in details, while they view the "big picture".

So what is this "big picture" thing? I think I have found out.

People with AS tend to view people as a lot of individuals trying to survive individually. We view the details, i.e. individuals instead of a group.

NTs view people as one big living unit trying to survive. They view the "big picture", i.e. the group instead of individuals.


So why can't we just decide to view the "big picture" the way NTs do it? Well, personally, it is because I do not like it. Viewing people as one big unit trying to survive means people are of inherent different value. Those who can contribute to the survival of the group the best, are worth the most, those who can contribute to the survival of the group the least, are worth the least.

Viewing the "big picture" means disrespecting the lives of those who fit less well into the group. I really do not think "low ranking" people are supposed to spend their lives serving "higher ranking" people the way it is supposed to be. All this slavery is awful.

You have interesting thoughts. Big-picture stuff eludes me too. It reminds of that instance when someone (a supervisor) was frustrated with me because I couldn't 'grasp' the big picture. This 'big-picture' wasn't the big picture you're talking about. Thinking back, I still don't understand what it is I was meant to see. It was never made clear. Perhaps I should investigate things further.

I am very much a detailed-oriented thinker. I am not able to grasp the “big picture” until I have thoroughly explored and cataloged all the details. Though, what's interesting, is once I have digested all the details, I see the whole picture much more clearly than others.

Until recently, I never understood how extremely detailed-oriented I am. Heck, I didn't understand what the term meant. I also didn't previously understand the saying "can't see the forest for the trees". Because eventually, I always see both.

From what I've seen, NT's define "big picture" based on their rather narrow world-view. They're as guilty of failing at it as we are supposed to be.

What you describe might be the manifestation of the fact that NT's are more receptive to political propaganda, and world view framing, rather than of natural dispositions.

Last edited by Stannis on 23 Feb 2014, 7:47 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Rocket, what you've described explains how I think too. It does take me some time to form an overall picture (much like putting together a jig-saw puzzle). I can't see the overall-picture immediately or within a short span of time. I need a lot more information. It's been described to me as systematic thinking.

the optimal situation is where you can see things both ways.

'Big picture' thinking, or the ability to form abstract generalizations as opposed to the capacity to hyperfocus (driving out all distractions) and concentrate on specific details are both skills that be learned. However, NT and AS children have opposite tendencies in their development of these abilities, they also learn at different rates and in different directions. The slower and deeper autistic learning curve means that developing the ability to globalize and generalize comes AFTER we learn to hyperfocus - often we do not learn these abstracting skills until well into our late teens, twenties or beyond. I'm not sure that NTs ever learn how to focus deeply for long periods of time - in my experience, they do not. And yeah, no matter how skilled they get at abstracting and generalizing,, these are not the 'go to ' natural mode of thought for AS folks...whereas it is how most NTs naturally function. When I'm tired for example, I lose my bigger focus and go into 'tiny mode'...just looking at the details of life... things can get pretty scattered and ultra-specific.

The rapid NT development and socialization schema allows for society to look at the ability to see the big picture as normal. It encourages groupthink formation and discourages analytical accuracy, the perception of discordant details or deeper questioning of the whole by the individual.

Instead of building up a sense of understanding something from all the tiny parts (which is how I do things) - an NT person somehow grasps the whole all at once without seeing the parts or the details...and sometimes might have a hard time seeing how the parts relate to the whole...

Agree on that. It just seems like this world claims that the "big picture" view is the only "right" one, i.e. no respect to the individual, only to the group. That's why we get forced to conform (to an extreme degree sometimes!).

Yes, I have observed this too.

I never quite understood what the big picture is supposed to mean. I know it means something like seeing a picture of a dresser but you don't see the dresser. You see the knobs and the drawers and anything that is on it like wear and tear but they don't know it's a dresser they are looking at. But yet I have seen NTs get so focused on something they miss the whole picture meaning they ignore the rest that is written in someone's post and dwell on one little thing that was written in it. It's like they will only read what they want to read and only read the negative and are looking for something to get upset by just to make a fuss about it. I have seen grammar nazis do this too. See a typo and make a big deal about it and act dumb pretending they don't understand what it says or say the person must have made that word up and they are making a joke about it and ignoring the actual post.

I agree with that.
I have absolutely no problem seeing the big picture, it's (mostly) the NTs that have that problem. They only see what concerns them in the immediate future. It's like they just forget that we're all the same species living on a single planet. But let's just kill each other in the name of peace and use up all the worlds resources ridiculously fast and ignore the cheaper, healthier alternatives

Your obsession with neurotypicality and grouping seems like generalization and stereotyping of some kind. Are you suggesting that all communities should be socialist or something? Why are you so adamant that neurotypicals view everything as a group rather than individuals? Most importantly, why do you consider it to be a trait of 'neurotypicals', rather than of individual people? Is that not you grouping, thus viewing what you term the 'bigger picture'? I don't understand how you can strictly state that individuals with Asperger's focus on the individual, when there is a prominent ongoing division of groups on this forum, to the degree that I personally don't see elsewhere.

If a neurotypical struggles to understand autism, I don't see why it wouldn't apply the other way around.. so I ask again: how can one claim to know how others think so easily, most specifically those with different neurology? I read time and time again, individuals with ASD hate the stereotypes, the generalizations, the incompetent professionals who refuse to talk with those who actually have ASD. Why throw it back the other way?

It isn't 'neurotypicals' having that problem, it is a select amount of people. There are far many more neurotypicals than autistics in the general population, so obviously you'll have individuals that stand out as arrogant/malicious etc. Autistic people aren't necessarily kind, respectful etc.. in fact I'd say that in comparison to the general population, the personality spread is probably the same. There have been serial killers who had Asperger's, hence why there's a related stereotype out there that many with AS are frustrated by. In my own life experience, I've known a great many brilliant neurotypicals. Out of the few individuals with ASD that I've known, they proved to me that they were brilliant individuals as well. I've met a crap-ton of 'trashy' neurotypicals, but that is not in any way related to so called neurology, rather it is their individual personality, and the choices they make.

Great posts. BTW, those of us with HFA do just fine on psychologicals which test for gestalt. We can see the whole. However, in my experience, it's more correct to say that we think the whole, but we see the parts. It's like a centrifugal force inside our souls which drives us to detail.

But once we've processed the details we know the whole better than all the rest.

I always view the big picture. The foreground doesn't really stand out from background to me, like I guess it does with NTs; everything is just part of the foreground, though some stuff looks farther away than other stuff. I can see so many details that I often have a hard time interpreting my surroundings, and it gets confusing. I often used to just stare at the ground in front of me or focus on something random to avoid being overwhelmed by so many details, but not anymore; I embrace my hypersensitivity and have built up a tolerance for it. It's actually kind of neat that I can see things in this way that few others can. Though when I see the whole picture at once, nothing stands out, so everything just blurs together in my head, and I have to manually sort out what the important details are. I guess that's why I appear not to notice the big picture.